Posted on 02/14/2011 7:19:05 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Below is the O so apt resignation of Steven J. Welcenbach from the American Chemical Society (ACS). In it he describes how the largest scientific society in the world has become a non-scientific activist group bowing to political pressure and ignoring its members objections. Such is his ire and dismay, he is not only pulling his membership but vows to do all he can to make sure ACS does not receive public money. He suggests that many former members will form a new society that rigorously follows the scientific method (hear hear).
Its time to start talking about that new society. What would we call this international coalition of scientists who demand the highest standards of reasoning, who expect that the society would be there to serve its members, not just serve the aspirations of the committee members, or grant-seeking-associates? What would be written into its constitution? Any large entity is a target for people seeking power or seeking to use science for their own purposes. How do we stop that decay?
Where is this science association that would never dream of uttering an ad hom, or argument from authority, and would never declare that the debate is over and grovel before the false prophets of science? Where is the association that would outspokenly condemn any scientist who hides data, makes logical errors, and resorts to name-calling to silence the critics?
Art Robinson wrote about the how the control of the quest for knowledge itself has been usurped from individuals and private industry and taken over by the government. I discussed his excellent article in The Truth Shall Set You Free.
How soon can we start?
Jo
PS: (Thanks to Bob Carter for passing it on).
(Excerpt) Read more at joannenova.com.au ...
Cut off funding for corrupt Government selective research...i.e. the power grab known as “The Global Warming Hoax” and other such efforts.
bttt
Only a bachelor's degree?! So if a guy with three doctorates tells me he's full of shit, who do I believe? God, this gets confusing!
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Joanne Nova:
February 15th, 2011 at 12:09 am
Steve, rather than a society of any specific discipline, Im thinking of something generically science. It could develop subgroups, but more important than anything else is simply to be guardians of The Method. To stand up for logic and reason and the hunt for the Truth, above all else. To rise above the corrupting influences (is that possible?). To stop science being used as a tool against the people (by its misapplication, misappropriation, through lies by omission, or monopsonistic funding.)
I’m afraid that noadays the only rigorous scientists you’ll find are the ones with rigor mortis.
The others seem to be a species of Jelly Bears.
It seems to me that we’ve managed to create a modern era “Dark Ages”. The “secular” folks in government have managed to use funding to dogmatically control the efforts and results of researchers. (I quote secular, because they are religious, the follow the religion of global warming).
As a key piece of evidence, I present the once proud, once amazing, NASA. A scientific agency of great note, that has been reduced to a global warming shill and muslim outreach organization.
The Met Office link-buries the CET ( CET is Central England Temperature--352 years long )
The Klamath issues have been permeated with bad science. So many regulations use “the best advailable science,” so green interest groups rush in and commission their own study that amazingly arrives at conclusions that support their view. Advocacy science runs rampant with American Rivers, CalTrout and the local tribes.
We have a lonstanding groundwater study done by one of the world’s foremost scientists on groundwater. He is located at U.C. Davis and just testified as an expert in front of a CA Senate sub-committee. The BIA has funded the Karuk tribe to do their own study. Typically, these are then gamed to produce results to be used in court.
A few years back, the National Academy of Science did some studies that were poorly done for our area. They assumed that by visiting one valley, they covered both. One is volcanic with a glacial, spring fed driven system, the other alluvial with a snow pack melt driven system. They are not alike. Even the experts can mess up.
Messed up ...or a convenient error?
Where is the science association that would never take a dime in government or foundation money?
“..Im thinking of something generically science. It could develop subgroups, but more important than anything else is simply to be guardians of The Method. To stand up for logic and reason and the hunt for the Truth, above all else. To rise above the corrupting influences (is that possible?). To stop science being used as a tool against the people (by its misapplication, misappropriation, through lies by omission, or monopsonistic funding.” ~ JoNova
She sounds as if she’s channeling Michael Crichton:
“...we need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead. ... How will we manage to get environmentalism out of the clutches of religion, and back to a scientific discipline?
There’s a simple answer: we must institute far more stringent requirements for what constitutes knowledge in the environmental realm. I am thoroughly sick of the politization of so-called facts that simply aren’t true.
It isn’t that these “facts” are exaggerations of an underlying truth. Nor is it that certain organizations are spinning their case to present it in the strongest way.
Not at all-—what more and more groups are doing is putting out is lies, pure and simple. Falsehoods that they know to be false.
This trend began with the DDT campaign, and it persists to this day. At this moment, the EPA is hopelessly politcized. In the wake of Carol Browner, it is probably better to shut it down and start over.
What we need is .. an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will ___fund identical research projects to more than one group___, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.
Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politcized, then we are lost.
We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better. That’s not a good future for the human race. That’s our past.
So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that. ~ Michael Crichton Environmentalism as Religion - Here: http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/index.html
bttt
Scientists are the new high-priests of the religion of “science”. Bow down and worship!
Scientists are the new high-priests of the religion of science. Bow down and worship!
***Yes they are. That’s why I have been adding the keyword “scientism” on appropriate articles.
A subject near and dear to my heart. These people need all the support they can get from wherever they can get it. After decades of junk science mostly bought and paid for with the taxpayer’s dime, it’s about time. The Scientific Community’s® Egypt???
Have a great day!
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